


Plutus

by Tayine



Category: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mt. Pelion, One Shot, POV Achilles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-21
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 07:44:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6070972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tayine/pseuds/Tayine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything that took place that time Patroclus broke his arm and skinned his knee, as seen by Achilles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plutus

Patroclus had only been gone for a few hours when Achilles began to feel a slick, oily sort of dread in the pit of his stomach. He rationalized the absence for his first few quickening heartbeats, speaking to himself in his mind as his body went along with the movements Chiron had declared perfected long ago. He wound the polished staff across his shoulder and stabbed it into the grass beneath his feet, telling himself that Patroclus had gone off on his own many times before… but had it ever been for so long? Was he simply becoming nervous and protective, like a young bride? It wouldn’t do to interrupt his companion if he’d gone away for privacy or brooding, both of which Patroclus required and both of which lay beyond the field of Achilles’ own understanding. But if something had happened…

Achilles looked to their teacher and voiced his concern, which was not shared by the wise centaur. It would take several more hours of his disappearance for it to become serious and necessary for a search of the land around Mt. Pelion. So Achilles went back to the forms, the staff whipping through the air with a fierce whistle as he twirled and struck. But his heart wasn’t in it, and Chiron stopped him early, making dissatisfied noises in his throat. Achilles clutched the staff in a fist and took off running in a random direction down the mountain, calling his friend’s name and hearing it echo back at him through the trees and birdsong.

He spent the rest of the afternoon searching, and by the time the wine-red sun touched the purple horizon of the old lands, Achilles was near frantic. Sweat was running down his neck and back, trailing the same paths that Patroclus’ fingers had traveled only a few days before during a lesson of the human body, when they’d learned the lines of muscle and tendon. He returned to the mouth of their cave only by necessity once the moon was full up, breathing hard and hating himself for not setting out right away that morning, once Patroclus’ absence had first been marked. He yelled at Chiron when he offered food and drink, a first that shamed him immediately. The spot in their bed where Patroclus should have been curled in sleep lay open like a chasm, cold and belching the air of the underworld.

Achilles did not sleep that night. He sat on the mattress, seeing every tree, every boulder, every turn he had taken. He would go a different way today, and a different way the day after, and on and on until he found him. If Patroclus was not discovered anywhere in Chiron’s territory, he would set off and find the first sign of civilization, tracking his friend. The kidnapping of princes was not rare in their world, but Patroclus was not a prince anymore, hardly worth anything. Except to him. Achilles shuddered physically at the thought of a lover’s ransom, some foolhardy king from another land taking _aristos achaion_ ’s own sworn companion in the hopes of securing a generous share of wealth. The only thing a kidnapper would earn is his head mounted on the sharp end of Achilles’ spear.

He sat in a twilight state of wake and sleep, cross-legged on the blankets of their bed, until the first lonely trills echoed from a distant songbird’s throat. Then he was up and out of the cave’s mouth in an instant, leaving behind the glittering pink of the quartz and the warmth of the home that was haunted with the years he’d spent with Patroclus back at his father’s castle.

It was still dark out – that solitary bird was an early riser – but he didn’t need the dawn to find his way. Achilles picked his steps as carefully as a lion on the hunt, searching out any and all signs that could point to the whereabouts of his most beloved friend. Yesterday he had gone down the mountain that way. Today he would go up in an opposite line.

The slope was easy at first, this far up, but it didn’t take long for him to tire of the exercise. Not physically, of course. Mentally, he exhausted himself with images of Patroclus in pain, being tortured, being harmed in all the ways that man had devised to hurt their fellow man. He walked and fought tears, walked and fought rage. All the while, he called his friend’s name, drawing out the syllables: _Pa-tro-clus!_

At high noon, when the blazing sun burned down on his shoulders and roiled itchy heat on his scalp, Achilles froze midstep, about to crunch down on a patch of leaves. He’d heard it. He knew he had.

“Patroclus!” he shrieked, cupping his hands around his mouth and throwing his head back, screaming directly at the gods above. “I hear you!” he shouted, knowing the gods must think him a madman. “Please, Patroclus.” This he let trail off into nothingness, despair winding through his heart and making him sick with guilt.

Then again, he heard a foreign sound wiggle through the heat of the crowded forest. He teetered back and forth on his feet, unsure where to go, this way or that, since the sound had no origin to his ears. _The gods shall guide me_ , he thought to himself fiercely, making an instantaneous decision. He turned left, heading to the cliffs.

This whole time, he’d been almost sure that Patroclus had been kidnapped and held somewhere close by, all the better for Achilles to find him and his captors and be told of the exchange that would have to take place. It’s what he himself would have done if he were as black-hearted as a ransom-taker. The possibility that his friend was just hurt somewhere was a distant second, and he’d searched the mountain and the lands surrounding with the grudging but unbelieving hope that he would just stumble onto his friend’s body. Third in his mind was the idea that his mother was to blame, but that was so unacceptable to him that he did not allow himself to entertain it for long.

His desire to find Patroclus was tempered with the knowledge that he would be able to work out his frustrations on any men unlucky and stupid enough to still be there when he found them. It kept him going, this sweet anticipation of violence in exchange for the heartache and other undesirable poisons that had swept through his veins since his discovery of Patroclus’ absence. He was unblooded, as yet – he’d thought he wouldn’t have to kill his first man until the far distant years to come – but it would be as sweet as summer wine to drive his spear into the belly of anyone willing to challenge him now.

“Patroclus!” he called one more time, ascending a jagged outcrop of craggy stone that he’d climbed in order to get as high up as possible. The entire world stretched out beneath his feet; he could see the coast and the deep waters of his mother’s realm, twinkling in a sliver of homesickness. He remembered that day on the beach. He returned there sometimes, often in the darkest hours of the night, while Patroclus and Chiron were both safely asleep, unable to see the blush that spread across his cheeks and down his chest, pooling in his blood. It ached, sometimes, to return to that day, and the next morning he would have to throw himself into his exercises, his staff whipping so quickly in his hands that it became invisible even to himself, and he would have to rely on the reflexes of his muscles to work out what he was going to do next. He lost himself in the sunshine of that memory, just for a moment.

Then, faintly: “Achilles!”

His heart jolted. He went blind. He got ahold of himself quickly, and shouted, “Tell me where you are!”

“Down!”

Down could mean anything from this vantage point at the top of the world, but Achilles headed that way anyway, continuing to shout encouragement. It felt like he had won all the gold in the entire world, a prize saved for the best feat a man could hope to achieve. If – no, when, he corrected himself harshly, he had heard him, they were talking and he was about to be found – _when_ he got to Patroclus, wherever he was, he would have to tell him everything that had happened. Patroclus deserved to know that he was worth all the gold in the world.

“Keep shouting!” he instructed loudly when he’d gone down a ways, deep into a part of the cliffs they had only seen once before, when being given their lesson on rocks and earth. Chiron took his charge as their teacher seriously, and he told them all there was to know of human understanding. Patroclus was worth all of that, as well, and Achilles thanked the gods in a breathless prayer that he would be home safe soon.

“I’m here! Down here!”

With a sudden dread, Achilles understood. He went to the sheer edge of the gorge, a place where even he felt a twinge of vertigo, and put all his weight into his feet, solidly planted on the rock, as he leaned out as far as he was willing to go.

“Achilles!”

As sure-footed as he was, the sound came sudden and so close that he had to pinwheel his arms, scraping his toes on granite and sandstone and quartz, before regaining his balance and looking down.

To his right, but far below him, Patroclus huddled piteously on a shelf, his shining face pointed up and wearing such a naked expression of love and relief that Achilles nearly threw himself down as well, just to be closer to him.

“Are you all right?” he asked instead, positioning himself on his belly and scraping out so that his head and chest hung a few inches into nothingness.

“My arm is broken.” His friend displayed the injury with a wince; his forearm was bent unnaturally in the middle, just enough to be sickening, but not enough that the bone pierced the skin, which is what happened sometimes. Achilles could see now that his most beloved friend was far from all right. His lips were pale, but every other part of his skin blazed with the angry red of sunburn and dehydration. Dark circles purpled under his eyes, which moved listlessly as he looked over Achilles gazing back at him.

“I’m going to get you up.”

“Please.”

The word was insistent and grateful. It plucked at his heart like the sounds of his lyre. Patroclus had absolute faith in him. He wasn’t sure anyone else did, not even his mother. Especially his mother, who had tried to separate them when they both needed each other most. Using this anger, Achilles went to work. He stood up and disappeared from sight for a moment. He heard Patroclus murmur at this, and he reappeared again quickly, reassuring his friend that he hadn’t gone away. Not ever. In his hand, his spear extended straight and true.

“I’m going to put this down,” he said, working through the plan aloud for himself just as much as he was doing for Patroclus. “You have to grab hold tightly and not let go. Then I’ll pull you up.”

“All right,” said Patroclus, face turned up so that it blazed like the sun. “You can’t drop me.”

“Never,” he said tenderly, surprising himself, and he moved past the moment quickly, positioning himself back on his belly and lowering the blunt end of the spear. The sharp iron point stood dangerously close to his own hand, but that didn’t matter to him in the slightest.

Patroclus reached for the spear with his good arm, but his fingers fluttered impotently just inches from it.

“You’ll have to stand,” Achilles said patiently. “Just don’t look down.”

“My knee…” Patroclus said sheepishly, letting his voice trail off. Just as he said it, Achilles spotted the second injury. It was crusty with dried blood, but there was a lot of it, and there had to be tiny pieces of rock and sand digging in as well, making it even more painful.

“Why didn’t you say so before?” he asked, almost amused. This was just a second challenge, one that Patroclus would have to overcome. It almost felt good, this test of their wits, strength, and resolve. It was as if the gods had decided that their lives were too easy here on Mt. Pelion. Well, Achilles did not approach a challenge with anything less than determination to win. Even good Patroclus felt the same, though he showed it in different ways.

Patroclus did not answer; perhaps he felt ashamed. Quickly, Achilles offered him a golden smile, the kind that he knew would warm him. “You’ll manage it,” he said encouragingly. “I know you can.”

“If I fall-”

“Then I will jump after you.”

Patroclus took a breath, glancing downwards at the gorge which cut a jagged, gruesome line into the earth many feet down, ending in a shallow river with rocks and logs speckling the bottom. “Then we’d both die,” he said uncertainly.

“Then we’ll both die!” Achilles repeated impatiently. “Stop stalling and stand up.”

His friend looked upwards again, his pink cheeks flushed with more than just sunburn. There was desperation behind his eyes, and Achilles could see the quiver of his bloodless lips. It was more than fear, but he couldn’t read it. “There’s no reason for you to sacrifice yourself-”

“Patroclus, are you going to grab the spear, or am I going to have to come down there and do it myself?”

Patroclus closed his mouth into a shadow of a smile, tender and embarrassed. “All right,” he said, making the move to stand even as he continued to argue. “But you really can’t drop me.”

“I promise,” Achilles murmured solemnly. His fist holding the spear was sweaty, but he didn’t dare adjust his grip or wipe his palm, lest Patroclus see and think his own nerves were shot.

His friend pressed his bare back against the stony face of the ridge, his good arm flung wide with fingers clawed backwards into the rock. Then he slowly worked his weight up, moving from the sitting position he’d adopted to take up as little room as he could on the shelf to a semi-crouched position on one leg, his bad knee awkwardly cocked at a half-bent angle that skewed his balance.

“You’ll have to- no, you have to use both legs,” Achilles said as he was doing this, wiggling further and further into the nothingness of the hot air. He wanted so badly to just go down there and do it himself, lifting Patroclus and tossing him back onto solid, sure ground. He felt impotent, watching it from afar, not knowing what would happen next or how to stop it if it got bad.

To his credit, Patroclus did as he was told, dragging his injured leg back underneath him to hold his weight. He groaned at the pain, hissing through his teeth and chapped lips, but he did it.

“Good job, keep going,” Achilles muttered under his breath, almost more for himself than for his friend. “Look at me, Patroclus, look at me. You can do it.”

His friend looked. He smiled.

Achilles swallowed thickly. His mouth had gone dry. “Ready?”

Instead of replying, Patroclus reached for the spear at this new angle, his movements slow and careful as though the shelf was chipping away from the face of the gorge. He took a tight hold of it, adjusted his grip once or twice, and nodded.

Achilles pulled up with sheer grit, his arm muscles popping. He too was positioned in a strange angle, pulling up from his belly and going sideways onto his ribs. Patroclus’ feet left the rock and he let go, startled, dropping back and staggering.

“Patroclus!”

“I’m all right, I’m sorry. Try again.”

His heart had leapt into his throat. He had to take a moment to recover. This time he went to his knees, holding the spearhead between both fists at ground-level. Patroclus took hold again.

Achilles pulled upwards, using all the strength and energy and ferocity he had in him. When a good length of the spear came up, he went from his knees to his feet in a crouch, sending Patroclus, dangling from his end with one hand, sideways just enough that he was no longer above the shelf that had caught him in his fall. If he let go again, or if Achilles lost his hold, there would be no recovery.

So Achilles would not lose his hold. He straightened his knees, pulling now with his legs, and when Patroclus’ head appeared above the square edge of the ridge, he went down again as quick as thunder and wrapped his arms around his friend’s chest, beneath his armpits, pulling and then falling backwards, cushioning the landing with his body so that no more harm would come to sweet, loyal Patroclus. Then he reacted to a sudden, fierce wave of relief, wrapping him in an embrace that lasted millennia. Their hearts were beating together in their chests, and he drank the salty sunshine smell of his skin. When they finally broke apart, Patroclus went for Achilles’ hands, holding one of them in his own, his broken arm held tight against his ribs in protection.

“You’re bleeding!” Patroclus said sharply.

It was true. The spear head had dug into his thumb where the downward points clawed into the fist he’d had on top. Achilles examined this passively, then put his mouth to the cuts, licking away the blood. “I’ll be fine,” he said easily. “Now we have to get you home.”

Patroclus grinned a boyish smile. The adrenaline was making both of them giddy. “I trust you’ll figure out a way to do that, as well.”

Yes he would. Achilles swept his friend up in his arms, cradling him like a triumphant soldier hauling home his riches. He put his head forward for just an instant, touching their foreheads together. He closed his eyes and then opened them, and Patroclus was staring at him with an intensity he had never seen before.

“Thank you for saving me,” Patroclus said, and his voice was colored with that mature seriousness that Achilles knew and loved about him.

Achilles could not answer. Instead he raised his shoulder the slightest bit, bringing his face forward once again. Their lips met with the honeyed warmth of figs growing in the sunlight, of sand smooth behind their backs, of a single lyre song played by firelight. When they broke apart, it was nothing like that day at the beach, though Patroclus looked as startled as Achilles had been once.

He felt like the richest man in the world, holding an armful of the only person who mattered, the reason for being. He hefted his wealth once in his arms, making his friend snort a laugh as he had to hold on tight, and then started for home.


End file.
